I've had only minimal problems with HP or Compaq over the years; after all, Asagi and Laptop are both Presarios, while Frankenstein Classic is built around the motherboard from an old HP desktop.

Dell, on the other hand, has some nicely built systems that usually run well...except for the OptiPlex line; they're just hastily thrown together pieces of junk. However, should your processor fan die, god help you if you're going to try and replace it; they just had to use a proprietary plug for it, instead of something more industry standard.

Well.... that's just it... a user-mode Unix subsystem that runs on top of an NT kernel. And it's not even there so people can develop Unix programs on Windows; it's there so developers can port Unix programs to Windows.

do yourselves a favour, and stay away from me when you say things like that. lest i punch your damn teeth out.

speedy's an hp. she runs just fine. a little hot, yes, but every PC has its issues (Dells are cheap, Alienwares are expensive, macs are more expensive and harder to buy parts for, ibm sold out, acer's a piece of shit, etc.)

the newer HPs have failsafes in place to prevent burning out of cards and whatnot. and if you drop it, it locks the hard drive so no data is lost. which is nice, since when my friend dropped hers off her bed at her dorm, the screen was completely destroyed, but the data was fine.her HP runs Photoshop perfectly. that's just as an example, since i can do this and this without ever touching an adobe program.

just because you have ONE bad experience with ONE computer, doesn't mean you can judge the whole brand that way. yes, i think dells are cheap, but they're still good laptops. and i hate macs with the passion, but that doesn't mean that they're not also good. not to mention that there is NOTHING that can be done on a mac that can't be done on a PC. the next person to call mac "the better art computer" is gonna get me screaming up their ass. if you're gonna start brand-bashing, do it somewhere else. >:[

I think in the case of computer brands, it differes by region. For example, both Packard Bell and eMachines have appalling reputations in the US, so much that PB pulled out of the US in the late 90s. However in Europe, PBs are some of the most popular off-the-shelf PCs around. eMachines is also fairly popular over here when you can find them.

With regard to HP, the integrated wireless card in my little bro's HP Touchsmart tablet laptop (for integrated, read built onto the motherboard, not in an easily-replaced mini-PCI slot) died a month after the warranty expired. However, HP were so good about it, that as a gesture of goodwill they extended the warranty for him so he wouldn't have to pay to get the motherboard replaced. HP's customer support is great, I just don't like working on their machines as they are a bitch to take apart and whatnot. IMO, it is not neccessary to remove THE WHOLE FRIGGEN FRONT PANEL in order to take the hard drive out; that's just there to make it harder for the customer to maintain the machine themself.

On the other hand you have Dell machines. Historically they have legendary customer support (I needed the motherboard replaced in my Studio Hybrid and had it back with me up and running in less than a week), but the quality has gone down in recent years. Their machines were designed with tool-less maintenance in mind, so I rarely needed a screwdriver to work on them. Dells are my favourite OEM PCs and they are a pleasure to work on, expecially with regards to driver updates and whatnot. I was perusing their site on friday to find the database for a customer's PC as the service tag wasn't recognised by the archive, and found that they have drivers for PCs as far back as THE FRIGGEN INTEL 8088, MAN! That's like... 25 years old or more. Who else offers THAT kind of service?

I know that if you dig around the dusty, cobweb-covered NEC FTP site, they still offer an archive of drivers, BIOS updates, and documentation for both the Yeti and Minefield...and it goes back even further than that. Although, I'm not sure what the oldest model they still have information on is...

Quote from: Red-Machine on May 15, 2011, 07:15:51 amI think in the case of computer brands, it differes by region. For example, both Packard Bell and eMachines have appalling reputations in the US, so much that PB pulled out of the US in the late 90s. However in Europe, PBs are some of the most popular off-the-shelf PCs around. eMachines is also fairly popular over here when you can find them.

(Emphasis added cause I think he made a good point)

In my experience eMachines are terrible computers - mine had numerous major hardware failures, and the people I know who owned the same (or similar) model reported lots of issues with them too.

I've never actually had experience with Dells... so I shouldn't pass judgement. It is awesome that they have such good customer support though.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I use a Mac because I love it. It was a childhood dream to own one, the sort of thing I never thought would come true, and when I got my iMac I was so insanely happy and that happiness really hasn't worn out in a 18 months that I've owned her. I know for a lot of people getting a new computer is a matter of practicality and it was for me too (my eMachines was dead and my HP was too slow to be used for anything), but it was also a matter of getting to live the dream. Every time somebody questions my motives for using a Mac I feel like they're being insensitive toward what makes me happy, close-minded, and frankly it insults my intelligence by suggesting I could have made a better choice. No, I couldn't have. It was MY choice and I made the right one for ME.

It's like asking the owner of a certain breed of dog "Ew, why would you pick a _____ instead of a golden retriever? Golden retrievers are so much better, they can do everything your ____ can and more!" or walking up to a couple and saying "I really don't know what you see in him/her, you should date MY friend - s/he's so much better!" It's rude, it's hurtful and none of your goddamned business.

In closing, I offer a message for those who can't separate the pride they feel for their favorite system and their compulsive need to bash competing ones:

Quote from: Red-Machine on May 15, 2011, 07:15:51 amOn the other hand you have Dell machines. Historically they have legendary customer support (I needed the motherboard replaced in my Studio Hybrid and had it back with me up and running in less than a week), but the quality has gone down in recent years. Their machines were designed with tool-less maintenance in mind, so I rarely needed a screwdriver to work on them.

The support for my Dell's have always been amazing and I'll have to agree that Dell computers after 2006/2007 started to decline in quality but I think its starting to go up again with the redesign to their Inspiron systems. Dell servers are great as well, powerful and reliable but the RAID cards are always a pain for me when reinstalling OS' on them (took me a good 4 days to install Windows 2000 Advanced Server on my Dell PowerEdge 600SC) and some times they can't boot up without a certain amount of RAM (1GB but this is understandable as most servers wouldn't be able to run without 1GB). Acer computers have been good to me in the past few years (My little brother as a Acer Aspire desktop which can run most games, I have a Acer Travelmate laptop and my dad has a new Acer aspire laptop) and Emachines have served me well as well. HP's have only made me a hater due to the case designs, every HP I come in contact with I will need to take apart and its a pain my ass!

Macintosh has always been a safe haven for me, never had a problem and I enjoy using them (My first computer was a Macintosh PowerPC 8100).

My sister has an Acer Aspire One netbook; which she's named Chibi. I like it; in fact, I almost bought one exactly like it before I stumbled onto a Compaq laptop at a random trip to a pawn shop and went with it (That laptop, of course, being Asagi)

Well, all I ever had in ways of laptops is Lambda anyway... (she's an Acer Aspire 8930G, for those not in the know)

But DAMN is she pretty and good at what she does. =w=And what I've heard about Acer - including recent talk about the Iconia! OwO - makes me even more confident that the brand is a good one indeed. And most importantly - they're CHEAP. Sure, not dirt-cheap, but that just means they're not dirt-crap either - really good computers for very acceptable prices, I'd say.

I've already gone over it when I showed a picture in the member picture thread (As a late addition to my "Meet the Fleet" post). Still, for a no-name laptop, it ran great, had a case that was solid as a rock, and had an amazing screen; as a whole, it held the title of the best laptop I ever owned until Asagi came around. It may be gone, but it's certainly not forgotten if my username is any indication.

This laptop was left over at my grandma's house by my uncle; who suggested that maybe I could learn something from it. What I did learn was that the 486 my grandma had there was superior for most everything except an obscure shareware FPS I loved (I believe it's title was 3D Maze Wars. It was very primitive even compared to Wolfenstein 3D, but still managed to be fun...although, it's unplayable on anything faster than a 386). This laptop wasn't missed too much when it died; not like when PentiumMMX followed it to the grave shortly after.

This one was bought for $10 at a garage sale in early '05, and it ran pretty good although feeling really cheaply made...and then a cup of water was spilled on it while it was running and seemed to have killed it...but, come a week later, it came back to life; acting like nothing had ever happened. Eventually, the plastic around the screen began to crack worse than it already was when I bought it, as I began to migrate my files to the Yeti and began using the laptop mostly for emulation. Eventually, the AC adapter died and the screen snapped off; killing the zombie mere weeks after PentiumMMX died.

Fourth laptop: Micron TransPortName: Other Laptop (Since it was the other laptop, when compared to Laptop)Processor: Intel Pentium (133Mhz)RAM: 16MBOS: Windows 95 OSR2 (With some modifications)

This was bought at a garage sale in mid '07 for $10; this thing feeling as solid as PentiumMMX, although it wasn't quite as powerful as Laptop (Which had been given to me around the same time). However, it has some weird problems involving it's battery; sometimes it works great, other times the battery somehow causes the laptop to crash epically (Remove it and run it on AC, and you'll never have a problem out of it). The version of Windows was modified by me with performance and oddity in mind; as I added some unofficial patches to fix issues Microsoft never addressed (The big one being the memory leak in Internet Explorer 5), relabeled it as "Windows 96", and had it setup to use Program Manager instead of Windows Explorer (Giving it a feel of being a hybrid of 95 and 3.11). This laptop, although it still exists, has been retired from the fleet; since it's just too troublesome to use now because of the quirks involving it's battery, as well as it's lack of a CD drive.